Help users recognize, diagnose, and recover from errors
Error messages should be expressed in plain language (no codes), precisely indicate the problem, and constructively suggest a solution.

Help and documentation
Even though it is better if the system can be used without documentation, it may be necessary to provide help and documentation. Any such information should be easy to search, focused on the user’s task, list concrete steps to be carried out, and not be too large.

If you missed part 1 & part 2, feel free to catch up after this episode. You won’t need to have heard the first two, but they cover 4 other important UX principles.

Today we will be discussing:

Error prevention
Even better than good error messages is a careful design which prevents a problem from occurring in the first place. Either eliminate error-prone conditions or check for them and present users with a confirmation option before they commit to the action.

Recognition rather than recall
Minimize the user’s memory load by making objects, actions, and options visible. The user should not have to remember information from one part of the dialogue to another. Instructions for use of the system should be visible or easily retrievable whenever appropriate.

As always, we want to hear from you so leave your comments below! You can also reach us on Twitter:

This episode, Chris and Jon start a series of shows devoted to everyone’s favorite usability heuristics! If you never heard of these before, or if you heard of them and forgot about them, have a listen and refresh your brain! These principles in interaction design are critical to helping make your product successful. Later in the show, we talk about how different apps utilize these principles and whether or not they did them well.

Chris was less enthusiastic about this app as the poor onboarding (as of this post) made it really difficult to figure out what the app does. Needless to say, they didn’t apply Nielsen’s heuristics very well.

As we were running out of time, Chris didn’t get too much of a chance to talk about this app. But it’s worth looking at simply because the language they use in the app matches the real world really well. The language is informal (not necessarily casual) but effective, and even works in concepts from the last show on playfulness!